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Few remnants of debate remain at Hofstra

BY ALFONSO A. CASTILLO

October 17, 2008

But for one stray "Students For Obama" hand-painted sign leaning against a wall, there was little physical evidence yesterday at Hofstra's Student Center Cafe that, just a day earlier, the school was the center of the political universe.

With much the same vigor that they showed in transforming the Hempstead campus into the ideal venue for Wednesday's presidential debate, hundreds of workers toiled through the night and well into yesterday to get Hofstra back to its original form.

For many students who took a new appreciation of the school's slogan of "Hofstra Pride" over the last several weeks, yesterday's return to normalcy was bittersweet.

While spreading cream cheese on her bagel, senior Katie Nolan likened it to the "day after Christmas," and said she was so bummed that she skipped her first class yesterday morning.

"I feel like if I go to class it's admitting that my life is back to normal," said Nolan, 21, who got to drive Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) around campus Wednesday and then attended the debate as his guest.

A few news crews continued broadcasting yesterday from outside the David S. Mack Sports and Entertainment Complex even as hundreds of laborers from the school, the Commission on Presidential Debates, and private contractors scurried around them like worker ants.

Inside the center, where the debate was held, they lowered and dismantled giant lighting rigs and steel scaffolding, rolled up carpets and, screw-by-screw, tore down six 12-by-15-foot wooden structures that served as the control centers for the major news networks.

At the adjacent fitness center, which served as the press room for about 3,100 reporters a day earlier, workers took down 60 flat screen televisions, gathered up armfuls of phone wires that looked like spaghetti and filled large plastic bins with hundreds of power outlet strips.

Time was of the essence. Tonight the sports complex hosts Hofstra basketball practice while the fitness center hosts a volleyball game. To that end, athletic facilities director Larry Bloom said his workers started the cleanup process minutes after the debate wrapped up - stacking chairs and clearing the floors - and returned to the campus in the early morning. Sophomore James Cuoco, 19, said he was awoken by the sound of trucks at 3 a.m.

Bloom said it will likely take a week and a half before everything is back in its place. But he's not fretting.

"I can't recall an incident over the entire five or six months that I was here on site that anybody ever said, 'No, we can't do that,' " Bloom said. "That, to me, says volumes about what this institution is."

For sophomore Wayne Drummond, 20, who plays on Hofstra's football team, every relocated workout session, canceled practice and security checkpoint was well worth it.

"You can look back with your kids one day and say, 'That president there, when I was in college he came to my school for the final debate,' " Drummond said.